Loki's Blanket
by Felicity G. Silvers
Summary: "So the whole sick thing, that related to your magic fading?" Even slightly drunk Tony felt a thrill of danger at the look he got.


A long time ago, I read Lo-kithe's Until death do us part ( www . fanfiction s / 8340085/1 / Until-death-do-us-part ) (you should read it. I enjoy it quite a bit) and I started to think about how I'd do it because I didn't care for the journal set up. And I was also knitting a blanket that I've been calling Loki's blanket.

And I wanted to tell a story about it.

Here we are.

This is quiet and soft and I hope you enjoy.

Warnings: character death, illness, snot

* * *

**Loki's Blanket**

The sea breeze rolling in is a little chill, but Loki doesn't seem bothered by it—probably because Tony insists on him wearing his coat and scarf at all times. He doesn't want what happened on their last excursion to repeat, if only because Tony's mostly sure there's very little time left. He hasn't checked. Both of them have stopped wanting to know.

Loki is sitting next to two older women, watching their hands, all of them talking quietly enough it's indistinct; not that Tony would understand them anyway, he thinks, even if he was sitting next to them. He didn't realize Loki knows Estonian, but he supposes it shouldn't really surprise him. There's a bag by Loki's feet, somewhat large (and Loki will scowl if Tony calls it a purse and very firmly correct 'tote'), but there's a tiny bit of green poking up out of the black. Loki hardly goes anywhere without it these days, not if he's going to have time where his hands do nothing (though right now the god's hands are holding apple wood needles, white lace dripping from them, while he talks to the women)(it's only a matter of time before he reaches for the bag, Tony thinks, and gives it another ten minutes based off the slight twitch of Loki's hand).

It started incidentally, like things usually do.

Tony had been in his suit when Jarvis pointed out Loki's magic signature. Loki had been on the roof of a building, looking tired and worse for wear, and the very first thing Tony noticed was that Loki's eyes were green. He didn't say so, instead he said something obnoxious (he didn't really remember what anymore). Loki had shrugged rather noncommittally and kept watching the city. Jarvis ran scans and quickly found that there were discrepancies between Loki's magic now and Loki's magic from before, namely: less of it.

Tony ended up sitting next to the god on the rooftop. Thor had told them, hardly a week after taking his brother back to Asgard, that Loki had been punished (what had sounded suspiciously like _torture_ and was enough to make even Barton flinch) and was on what sounded like parole, busy working on rebuilding the Bifrost but otherwise keeping to himself.

"Aren't you meant to be rebuilding a bridge?"

"I needed a break." Loki's voice rasped and he grimaced.

"Yeah, okay. You don't look good."

Loki only rolled his eyes, but he didn't move to get up; that was about when Tony realized that maybe the god simply couldn't, or was too tired. He _looked_ too tired, dark circles under his (green) eyes, skin a little sallow and sheened lightly with sweat.

"So that whole taking over the world thing," Tony started, staring down at the street where he thought Loki was looking, "seems to me like it was a really good ploy. You certainly didn't seem like you actually wanted to rule, even if you played it to the hilt. I mean, you didn't even _actually_ kill Coulson, though you did a damn good job of making it look that way. Like you wanted us to have something to rally behind, or around."

"You assume much."

"Dude. You're the god of lies. I think if you wanted us to think you were going to take over the world we would, at least for a while. I mean, you did and we did."

Loki smiled, just a little.

"Your eyes are green now."

"Yes."

"So did you…?"

Loki shrugged.

"For a time. My actions, if that is what you are asking, were nearly entirely my own. I certainly would not have cared at the time if your world was destroyed in the crossfire, though I am pleased, in retrospect, that it was not, and that I did not overestimate your small force's capability." Loki's voice was definitely rasping, sounded like he had a sore throat or recently lost his voice and just gotten it back. Tony wondered a little about that, wondered about how Loki's magic signature was less than it used to be. The god stood up, wavered for a minute as if he'd lost his sense of direction, and then straightened. Tony thought it was polite of him not to point it out. "I have work to do."

"Yeah. Okay. See you around."

Loki had smiled tightly before vanishing.

They did meet, several times, while Loki repaired the Bifrost. Tony kept it to himself, though he knew he should tell someone (even if only because Loki was on parole and so maybe someone should know in case he broke it by killing Tony (though he suspected that was pretty far from Loki's mind with memories of his punishment so fresh)). It was… difficult though. He was, as Natasha would say, compromised. Loki's mind was startling, sharper and clearer than it had been (or maybe it was just they were on the same not-side now), and the god drank knowledge the way Tony drank scotch. There was genius in the—still slightly insane—god, and Tony often found himself explaining how something worked and Loki nodding with legitimate understanding in his eyes. And, a few times, Loki would explain a little of magic to Tony, though Tony was quick to note that Loki hardly seemed as well-versed in it as he expected, like it was something Loki knew in theory more than practice. It didn't make much sense, but neither did the decline in Loki's magic each trip, or the extraordinarily wet cough the god sported at one point.

Tony offered him a medicine cup filled with (grape) cough syrup, which Loki eyed warily.

"For your cough. You sound like shit."

Loki grumbled, but took it, making a face far too cute for Tony's taste.

"That was vile." But with his coughs easing some, Loki didn't exactly refuse when a few hours later Tony handed him another dose, just before the first wore off. It'd been long enough, they'd been talking—this time, Loki showing him the completed Bifrost designs—and Tony drinking enough that what he asked next hardly seemed as suicidal at the time as it was in hindsight.

"So the whole sick thing, that related to your magic fading?" Even slightly drunk Tony felt a thrill of danger at the look he got. That look that Loki _still_ had when he wanted, that suggested he was calculating where the closest window was.

"Perhaps."

"Need help with it?"

"I'm looking into it."

It wasn't a 'no.'

A month later, Thor showed up with a strange look on his face and said that Loki wished to know if he would like to come to Asgard to see the Bifrost finally finished. Tony hadn't even waited a New York minute, just stood up in the middle of what he was doing, still shirtless, and asked where to sign (because he figured, at the time, between the lack of sleep for two days and the alcohol, that he was making a deal with the devil)(and if only he'd known then what he knew now. Wouldn't change his mind, he would have gone anyway, but might have been a bit more sober).

Thor had (wisely) decided that Loki could wait long enough for Tony to get a few hours sleep and clean up. Which just proved maybe he wasn't quite as dumb as Loki thought—not that Tony would tell Loki that when he saw him the next day.

In the chamber where apparently the bridge was activated, Loki walked around a slow circle (Tony's hands itched and his mind mapped everything he saw; the god just smiled slightly). To Tony, everything looked _done_, but then, he supposed, that would have meant he'd just been dragged to Asgard for no reason. Loki did not do things for no reason, ergo, the Bifrost was not actually done.

"After this," Loki said carefully, before he started whatever it was he was going to do, not quite meeting Tony's eyes, "I… Does your offer still stand?"

"Yeah."

Loki nodded and while it suggested he was not surprised, his eyes gave him away.

"What I've shown you, _that_ magic, is magic for people like yourself, for engineers and builders, or people who do not have innate talent," Loki said briskly, already moving away from vulnerability. Tony was already trying to store everything, because while he had a feeling he was suddenly going to have a lot more opportunity to ask about magic, he was about to _see_ as well. "It's the magic Odin carried to Midgard and where your science evolved from. Wizardry, if you will. It can do many things, but there are some things it cannot do, or cannot do without a great deal more effort than the other sort of magic, the one I have not spoken to you much, because you do not have the skill for it."

"Sorcery," Tony said, ever helpful, and Loki raised one eyebrow and he immediately shut his mouth again. Funny how good Loki was at that.

"Yes, that is indeed the parallel I was drawing. It is like, I imagine, how you innately understand your technology and chemicals, almost as if it were born into you, though in my case it is actually. A part of me." Loki went quiet for a second, looking distant, then continued. "It is fabric. It is knit fabric and woven cloth, that goes on forever, and no one part is unaffected by a thread torn from some place else. Everything is laced together. Seers, they see the cloth as it looks in the future, and prophecy is the cloth as it is fixed in a singular moment, but _sorcerers_, we see the cloth as it is now and how it will be shortly, learn to manipulate the threads and change them. There is something _in _us that is different, that let's us _see and _twist cloth, though no one has ever exactly picked out what it is or why we can. Perhaps we simply have hands that cannot resist tangling in the thread when we are born.

"In any case, it is _easier_ to bind a pathway to the realms for someone who can, with a bit of effort, see how and where the cloths lay, and easier still to grab those threads and interweave them so they meet at a fixed point. Like, say," a gesture to the sword currently sitting in the center of the room, "a sword that acts also as a key."

"Cloth, huh." Tony processed that. Magic, at least what Loki had shown him, rarely mentioned cloth, or fabric, or any of that, but then, that would make sense if it was something that couldn't be easily seen by those without the knack. It also suddenly made sense why Loki seemed less versed in it.

Loki pushed his sleeves up, ignored Tony's suddenly sharp gaze on the black veins that looked suspiciously like palladium poisoning lacing his right forearm, and reached his hands out. Every single hair on Tony's body stood on end as he felt _something_ brush past him, Loki's eyes distant and very very suddenly Tony realized he was in _Asgard_ standing next to a (possibly) _god_.

It was incredibly cool.

Loki's hands were deft, even if his right seemed to stumble a bit more than his left; it looked as if he were, in fact, plucking thread out of the air. Ice and fire and wind twined around his fingers, shimmering, until finally the god had something that glowed and swirled in his hands; reached out and bound it to the sword in front of him. For a few minutes, nothing else happened, then the glow faded, the room hummed, and Loki stepped back, slumping, looking _old._

They spent a few days in Asgard, Loki looking as tired and worn as when Tony first saw him on the roof, perhaps worse. Pepper was furious when Tony got back (alone, Loki had a few things he wished to bind off before leaving), even if he did have so many ideas and new things to do for the company. That, apparently, wasn't the point.

Loki arrived a few days after that.

Tony started, naturally, at Loki's magic and figuring out how to make a scan to pick it up. Loki tried to stay out of his way, except when he was needed, occasionally disappearing for days at a time (and usually coming back sick, a slight sniffle or sore throat, with some souvenir ending up on Tony's workbench the only indicator as to where the god had gone). When he _did_ have the scan Tony stared, because he was starting to get fond and he really didn't like the rough edges he saw (the just _missing_ chunk in the right forearm). A few more tests—Loki glaring at him a bit about the blood draw—and Tony went to Bruce, who knew more about medicine than Tony by a fair bit.

"It's a really low white blood cell count," Bruce confirmed for him. "It's… weird. What is this, Tony?"

Tony didn't answer him, just went back to Loki and poked and prodded some more and realized a few (unpleasant) things.

1. Loki's magic was, in fact, unraveling (to stick with Loki's metaphor). Loki knew this, had to, even though he had not explicitly told Tony.  
2. Loki had never been sick a day in his life before this, because  
3. Magic was Loki's immune system, or at least the largest and most reactive component (because Loki clearly coughed and sneezed and his throat got inflamed and all those other responses that suggested a body trying to fight sickness, but the magic must be what usually did the job white blood cells would, ie actually kill the infection). Ergo,  
4. Loki was dying.

And Tony wasn't going to give up, not just yet, but he suspected there was very little he would be able to do that Loki had not already tried, and that Loki had taken him up on his offer primarily because he was too tired and too sick too frequently to keep working by himself.

"You should probably," Tony said one night, as they were eating pizza—which somehow Loki had missed thus far—"try not using magic."

Loki had glanced over from the movie—_The Road to El Dorado_, for whatever reason the god loved the thing—with an eyebrow raised.

"It'll give you more time. From what I can tell, and I might be wrong but I don't think I am, it's what's kept you from getting sick before. You using it makes it… unravel faster." He flicked his eyes to where Loki was sitting still, eyes firmly on the television. "You're going to keep getting sick and it will keep getting worse. I can do what I can to help, and I'm not giving up, by any means, but it also wouldn't hurt to not make it go, you know, faster. The whole magic thing is a bit of a weird angle, and I'm not exactly a doctor, even if I have three doctorates."

"We'll see."

"If you don't want to be stuck here, I've got a jet. Most of the work I don't have to be here to do, so you just pick a spot and we'll go. Or you'll go, if you don't want the company. Also, you should probably try to do something that uses your right hand more. You're losing motor skills in it. Drawing or guitar or something."

"Knitting?"

"Sure. Just something to keep using it."

Which is why Tony didn't saying anything (okay, anything _much_) when suddenly a black tote (not purse) appeared, stuffed full of soft green yarn and a set of circular bamboo needles. And also why he kept his mouth firmly closed when, occasionally, he'd see Loki scowling at the yarn and needles and trying to work a few rounds of what might possibly be the start of a blanket (and the scowling seemed most directed at his right hand, which was, as Tony had pointed out, starting to weaken thanks to Loki never using it because of his right forearm being a mess of black veins and which, Tony knew, caused Loki no end of pain, some days sharp and some days dull, but _always_ hurting).

He spent an afternoon giving Loki all the major immunizations that he knew the god would never have had, much to Loki's annoyance. Bruises blossomed on his arm, far easier than Tony thought they should, but neither commented.

They started to take trips. Tony kept up on work for the company, so Pepper wouldn't harass him and find Loki by surprise, and generally worked on seeing what else he could do for Loki. Also ordered more cold medicines. Loki would spend the day away from whatever hotel they were at, wandering the city, some days managing to stay out the entire time, other days barely out an hour before he came back and collapsed into bed, asleep instantly.

They went to a carnival one evening, fall air crisp against their skin. Loki was amused by it all, the lights and the games—especially the games, appraising them with a con man's eye and seeming utterly delighted by what he found. They rode a few rides, Loki's sweet tooth kicked into high gear (cotton candy and funnel cakes covered in chocolate syrup and strawberries, which made Tony nearly ill to think about), and Tony ended up winning a small atrociously coloured purple dragon with a yellow belly and pale green wings—if only because Tony wanted to see Loki's face.

"This is not a dragon," Loki said dryly, examining the gift with amusement. He was looking a little worn, but insisted he was fine whenever Tony asked.

"Sure it is. I mean, look at it. It's got wings and everything." Tony used a finger to make the head look at Loki. When he move his hand away, it flopped back over.

"You mortals are strange."

"Suuuure we are." Loki went to hand it back. Tony stopped him. "Keep it, it's yours. I just won it to see your face anyway. You should name it or something." He tried not to shift under Loki's gaze, instead looking around as they made their way out into the parking lot. "Name it Nid-pig. You know. Thing that eats at the roots of the universe or whatever."

Loki chuckled, dry and low.

"Nidhogg."

"Yeah. That."

"This does not look like Nidhogg."

"Shame that. Universe would be a better place if we had a pastel purple dragon eating at it." Tony caught Loki's smile out of the corner of his eye and couldn't help but grin a little in triumph. Loki smiled less lately, though that wasn't really a surprise.

"I suppose," Loki said slowly, as if he were admitting something scandalous (maybe he was, he _had _seen Nidhogg), "it would be."

Loki got sick right after that. Tony should have seen it coming—should have insisted Loki wear a jacket when they went to the carnival, should have been more careful because children are cesspits of disease and he'd taken Loki right to where a score of them would be—but he hadn't, so instead he covered Loki in a blanket on the plane ride home, fed him fever reducers and decongestants, and tried not to let his stomach twist as the magic unraveled more trying to fight away the illness. Loki looked miserable, not surprisingly; he hadn't been quite this sick before, and he went through tissues constantly.

"_How_," the god asked irritably two days later, when he had his voice back, "do you mortals _deal_ with this? This is revolting. I have never felt so vile in my life, and I have lived _centuries_." He blew his nose loudly, looked disgustedly at the results, and added it to the small trash bin next to him. They were in the workshop, Tony leaned back while he waited on his newest idea to finish processing (shot number thirty-two, Loki had been keeping count, though Tony didn't need him to, and Tony had high hopes that even if this one didn't fix it, it would at least stave things off a little longer). Loki scrubbed his hands carefully with a baby wipe and then picked up the (definitely) blanket in his lap and went back to knitting for about a minute before he stopped again, blew his nose again, and added, "Absolutely, one hundred percent _revolting_."

"We cope about like you are. Complain, bitch, and do something with our hands until we're better. Generally there's a bit of 'oh my god I'm so gross!' that goes on." Tony grinned at him.

"At least you can _acknowledge_ this is disgusting." Loki was focusing very hard on the blanket and trying very valiantly to ignore the mucus starting to leak from his nose again.

Tony got up and sat back down next to Loki on the cot he'd originally had in the lab for himself, but which was generally Loki's spot when Tony needed him there. Tony grabbed a tissue and wiped Loki's nose for him, which got him a glare.

"Be nice," Tony told him, mock teasing, and Loki looked away. "Even if you are disgusting, I still like you."

Loki snorted, nearly choked as snot went down his throat (he clearly didn't like _that_ feeling at all based off how _green_ he got), and then looked pathetic enough that Tony almost felt bad for telling him. Almost.

"You mortals," Loki finally said after a few long minutes of knitting in defiance of his sniffles, before finally relenting to get another tissue, "are strange." Tony watched as he wiped his hands with a baby wipe before picking the blanket back up.

"I hope you wash that when it's done."

"One generally must, if one wants to see what it's actually meant to look like, instead of… of…" Loki was just as affected by the head fuzzing properties of cold medicine, that was good to know, "squiggly spaghetti noodles."

Tony nodded, and when Loki leaned against him, just a little, he didn't say anything, just watched how those fingers pushed and manipulated and slid yarn across smooth bamboo needles.

The shot didn't do exactly what Tony wanted—ie, stop Loki's magic from unraveling—but it _did_ keep it stable for a little while, long enough for Loki to get relatively better and stop sniffling and looking pathetic before the deterioration set in again. Tony could already tell that it probably wouldn't work the same way twice, otherwise he would have just hooked Loki up with a shot a day for the rest of forever.

After that, Loki didn't protest as much when Tony insisted on him dressing warmer (he had such a scarf collection, Tony was ready to swear that Loki never wore the same one twice (except for a blue one, badly knit, and Tony _wondered_ about that, because Loki only ever wore it when he was feeling particularly ill)).

Then there was strep, quickly worsening into tonsillitis. The good news was Loki was not allergic to penicillin, so it didn't get beyond that, didn't become scarlet fever (and what a world that Tony lived in, that a god might get scarlet fever), but Loki slept for nearly three days before Tony finally pulled him out of bed and fed him before they took off to see more of the world.

"Your arm is where it started, isn't it?" Tony asked, watching Loki stretch his right hand and wince. Today was one of the bad days, where he'd hold his right arm close to himself and try not to move it much, a sheen of sweat breaking out every time something brushed against him.

"Yes."

"What happened?"

Loki didn't respond right away and Tony thought he wasn't going to at all, so he went back to his tablet, sending Pepper an update to let her know that, yes, he was alive and no, he wasn't going to be back in Malibu for a week or two.

"It's where most of the tesseract's energy dug in. It is the hand I _do_ with, work with, that my energy flows through. It is my main hand. I imagine they thought to control me better that way." Loki's voice was low, just above a whisper, and bitter. "I was not careful enough. I do not know if it would even be possible to be _more_ careful than I was, and still it was not enough. They ripped my thread and darned it with their stupid cube's energy, and there's nothing that mimics it. I have tried." Loki paused, and Tony risked a glance at where the god sat on the hotel bed, looking down at his hand, and saw a few tears hit the black-veined skin. "Oh, how I've tried."

That was the moment where suddenly Tony realized that, no, he really wasn't going to be able to fix this. That he was entirely out of his depth—he'd barely been able to handle the palladium poisoning and here he was thinking he could fix _this_, this hole in Loki's actual _being_, just because he'd managed to get himself away from death for a few more years. And Loki had known this from the start, known that Tony could do nothing, known that _no one_ could do anything (because Loki was the best at what he was, which was to say: _sorcery_). He wasn't sure why Loki had come to him, except he kind of was. Loki didn't want to be alone while he died and Tony probably was entertaining enough, if how Loki smiled over clever retorts was any indication, and Tony, he'd offered to help but did not pity. Had not pitied, not once, even as Loki got sicker more often and he was willing to bet that was why Loki was still around.

He couldn't help, not with medicine.

So instead of drawing attention to Loki's tears, or lying to a liar and saying it would be okay, that everything would work out, Tony moved over to the bed (sans tablet), sat down next to Loki (on his left, to avoid brushing his right arm), and reached for the tote on the floor by the head of the bed. He pulled out the (getting larger) green blanket and actually spread it out a little to look at it. There was some sort of flower in the center, three sets of inner rings, then vines. It looked… organic, complicated, everything smoothing into the next ring so it was subtle where the sudden increases were. He could feel Loki's eyes watching his hand smooth out stitches. It was wool, he was sure, but it was so much softer than he remembered wool being—all he could remember were itchy sweaters he was forced into as a child.

"It's… uh… got a lot of vines."

Loki snorted.

"Very organic. Complicated."

Loki leaned into him, shoulder to shoulder, and (despite, or perhaps in spite of, the pain) ran his right hand along the lace.

"It's slow magic."

Tony frowned and glanced at Loki, but Loki was looking at the blanket.

"It doesn't use much. Barely anything, really, hardly sorcery at all. Like breathing. Even you humans do this. I know. I taught some of you, a very long time ago."

"Yeah?"

"Yes. I don't remember where. Your borders change so often. But it was nice, barely a town at all, on the sea. The breeze would drift in in the spring and it was beautiful there. I don't even know if it exists any longer."

"I'll look."

Loki did look at him then, puzzled, but he smiled a little when Tony met his gaze and he saw Tony wasn't just saying it.

Tony looked (while Loki was curled up and dealing with a fever, unable to breathe through his nose and barely able to see straight, grouching at everything, complaining that he ached and ached and _how_ had mortals lasted so long if they always felt like _this_), had Jarvis help him check for places like Loki had described and was somewhat surprised to find that, yes, actually, there was a seaside resort town that was famous for it's lace shawls—Haapsalu. A look at some of the lace from the area convinced him, looking like the vines and flowers worked into Loki's blanket already.

They were walking back one night from dinner (rather, Loki was leaned into Tony, Tony with an arm casually at his back like he wasn't keeping him steady) when the sky opened up like it had nothing better to do. Tony had been about to tell Loki that they were going to leave Barcelona tomorrow, tell him about Estonia and its pretty seaside Haapsalu, but instead they ended up running through town back to the hotel, Loki looking like like the rain had personally offended him.

"You're like a cat," he said. When Loki growled at him, he couldn't help laughing. He ushered the wet (cat-like) god into the wash room, shutting the door. "Dry off before you catch cold!"

"I do _not_ catch cold. I don't even know what cold _is_. Only decent thing about being a frost giant I suspect," Loki groused.

Loki started to cough, long, dry coughs, later that night. Tony held off telling him about Haapsalu.

"I'm fine," Loki snapped but didn't protest when they went back to Malibu for a while. He reached more often for the tote—fourth ring now and so big that Tony was sure it was going to swallow people before Loki was done. For the first time in weeks, Tony had Jarvis do a scan while Loki sprawled on the couch, sleeping, waking halfway from time to time to cough, deep and dry in his chest. Tony hated the sound of that cough and he hated the results of the scan more. He was halfway through a bottle of scotch when Loki finally woke up, so he put the scotch away and made Loki eat.

Loki kept coughing. Tony gave him cough suppressants, since they were dry coughs anyway, and at least this time it was only coughing. He could deal with just coughing, but he still kept Haapsalu secret, for a while, because he wanted Loki as close to well as he could be before they went. Wanted him to enjoy it. Tony promised himself that if Loki got too much worse, if that much more of his magic faded away—ie, if he got too much closer to death—that he would take Loki, even if the god was a puddle of snot and misery.

Loki kept coughing, longer and deeper, dark bags under his eyes. He moved more slowly; he did not complain or demand to know how mortals dealt with this nonsense, which should have tipped Tony off. Tony should have noticed how Loki was only able to sleep (bonelessly exhausted, usually wherever he happened to be sitting or laying) with the use of cough suppressants, and only for two or three hours at a time before the coughing tickled his throat again as the syrup wore off; should have noticed how little Loki would actually work on the blanket, usually just holding it in his lap, fingers twined in the yarn. Should have, but didn't, because Loki was sick so often and slept so much that Tony never even noticed what was _different_ until later. Despite Loki's protests, Tony got his family doctor to visit and was rewarded with a diagnosis—acute bronchitis. Nothing major, the doctor assured them, and usually resolved itself in a few days. Tony nodded, took the painkillers and anti-inflammatories, and tried very hard not to lose himself in his work because watching and hearing Loki was painful but Loki was too weak to really take care of himself (and besides, Loki hadn't come to Tony for Tony to ignore him, no matter what the trickster might insist). Loki didn't say much about it—took the drugs and knit (but mostly held) his blanket.

Tony was sitting on the couch with Loki, going over a report Pepper had sent him about the company. Loki was drowsing on the other end of couch, knitting piled in his lap, a cough rattling through him once in a while—softer, though, whispery coughs that didn't actually pull him from sleep (thank you suppressants). Tony had one hand on Loki's calf, rubbing idle half-moons in the pajama fabric, not even noticing the occasional shiver of muscle beneath.

"Stark," Loki whispered.

"Hmm? What is it, Loks?" Loki didn't say anything, not even his usual growl at the nickname, and Tony immediately looked up, frowning. Loki _always_ growled at the nickname, even if he was (secretly) fond of it (Tony was sure of this). Loki's eyes were wide, looking confused and suddenly incredibly _aware_ (mortal, Tony thought), and Tony finally realized the god was shivering, tiny little tremours that ran everywhere.

"I think," Loki said, then stopped, coughing and shaking for a painful minute.

"I think I'm _cold_."

He threw the tablet away, climbed into Loki's personal space even though usually all they ever did were incidental touches (shoulder to shoulder, one hand to a calf, socked feet brushing while sprawled on the couch), pressed one hand firmly to Loki's forehead. Loki didn't say anything, just looked at him, looked _confused_ and scared, _terrified_, shivering. His skin was burning to the touch. Tony gathered him up in his arms and carried him to bed and Loki, Loki didn't protest. Didn't even glare.

The coughing got worse and deeper still and Loki hovered somewhere between waking and sleeping, skin burning, shivering constantly even though he was drenched in sweat. Tony stayed near him, did work in bed, which is where Pepper found him one day, carrying a bag full of medicine that Tony had asked her to get. Her eyes locked on Loki immediately, then flicked to him. Loki was sleeping underneath a goose down blanket and a few quilts, shaking occasionally, one arm wrapped tightly around Tony and face burrowed into Tony's side (because Tony was warm and what little coherence Loki had when waking amounted to "Cold, I'm so _cold_").

"Tony," she said, voice full of warning, wanting to know why the same god who threw him out a window was currently sleeping against him in his bed. Loki stirred at the noise, so Tony put one hand on the god's head and pulled the blankets a little closer around his shoulders; other than the occasional shiver, Loki stilled again.

"He's dying, Pep."

Pepper just looked at him and he looked right back at her, because he had no idea how to explain this thing but she knew how to read him. Always had.

"Oh, Tony," she sighed, and sat down on the bed next to him. "Is this why you've suddenly become a tourist?"

He nodded a little, looking at Loki, one hand still in the god's hair.

Eventually, Loki stopped coughing and his fever broke but he never really bounced back. Would sit listlessly, staring out the window, hands tangled in the (so close to done) blanket; didn't really speak and took longer to acknowledge when Tony spoke to him. Tony spoke to him anyway, because the incessant chatter would eventually bring Loki back from where his mind was wandering. He moved more slowly, didn't demand Tony take him to some new corner of the globe, didn't actually seem at all interested in traveling any more, even if it was just to the bedroom to sleep—would instead doze, on the couch, in the workshop, wherever he happened to be, fingers tangled in yarn and breath so shallow that sometimes Tony would stop everything he was doing just to press fingers to Loki's pulse.

He didn't dare do another scan to see how much magic was left.

"How," Loki asked one night, in the dark, back to Tony (Tony never said a word about how Loki kept sleeping in his bed after the fever broke, because nightmares can make even gods do strange things), "do you mortals stand this?"

"It's kind of in the name. 'Mortal.'"

Loki didn't say anything to that, but Tony felt a tremble and twisted so that he could look at where Loki lay. He was curled on his side, shoulders shaking every few moments. Months of constant care-taking made Tony immediately check Loki's temperature and it took an effort of will not to flinch when his hand brushed tears. He rolled over, pulled Loki to his chest and wrapped his arms around, leaned his forehead against the back of Loki's neck.

"We forget," he told Loki. It was safe to say, there in the dark, to this god who had never really had to think of death beyond something that might happen one day, a very long time from now, except 'now' was just a fever away. "We forget our mortality and the mortality of everyone around us until something shoves it back in our face. Most of us are scared. I'm scared. I've nearly died more times than I can count at this point, should probably feel immortal with how much I slip past, but I'm still scared." He took a deep breath and rubbed small circles in Loki's skin. "We get drunk on every drop of life until we forget that we die, live fast and hard and bright, so that when death touches those near us we can stare back—maybe not fearless, maybe not without taking some scars—and keep living until it's our turn. And we try to forget that our turn will ever come." He thought Loki was still crying, though there was no more shaking.

"I'm not scared," Loki eventually lied, voice whisper soft in the dark.

"I know," Tony murmured into Loki's back, unable to keep the twisted mockery of a smile off his lips.

They laid there in the dark for a long time, neither quite sleeping. Tony thought of magic, of the blanket that was very nearly done, of how life was never quite long enough (not even for gods).

"Come on," he said, getting up, pulling Loki with him. He brushed the tears off Loki's cheeks before he had Jarvis turn the lights up. "I've got somewhere we need to go. Should have taken you as soon as I found it. Nearly forgot the whole sick and unraveling thing, which really just proves my point that all we do is forget about death until it's usually too late."

Loki stumbled after him and dressed, let Tony pull a far too large hoodie over his head.

"Where are we going?" Loki asked, following after him.

"Somewhere you've been before."

Which is why they are in Haapsalu, where Loki is running his fingers over lily of the valley and vine patterns while he talks to women who are descended in a long winding thread that spools back to that first time Loki stopped on this shore. Something permanent so that Loki can see just because his own thread might end, his warp has affected someone else's weft, in quiet ways he never noticed. It's all heady, cheesy nonsense, Tony knows this, knows it is sentimental and knows Loki is aware of it, but Tony also knows that Loki needs it. Needs that comfort. There's a reason people look back on their lives at the end.

That night, they are sitting on the edge of the pier, Tony looking out over the water, Loki quietly leaned against him, patiently working on the end of the blanket. Tony can't help but watch, a bit fascinated, as each stitch is carefully bound off, more and more of the blanket dropping free. It is, Tony thinks, actually quite amazing that all that stands between this blanket and unraveling is a single broken stitch. When he finishes, Loki holds it up a little, frowning.

"It looks great," Tony says.

"It is not done," Loki replies, fondly exasperated, then gathers the blanket into his arms, rises, sways a moment before he regains his equilibrium, and stalks back off to the hotel-spa they are staying at.

Sometime in the night, Tony wakes to the sound of smothered coughing. Loki's shivering, his skin hot to the touch. Tony gets the blanket off the other bed, pulls Loki into his arms, and rubs soothing circles in Loki's chest before both of them drift back to sleep.

The next morning, there's a stubborn set to Loki's mouth.

"All this coughing," he complains, then takes the dripping wet blanket out into the chill spring morning air with two boxes of quilting pins shoved in his coat pocket. "How does anyone manage a proper breath? It's a miracle you haven't all suffocated already."

Tony offers to help, which immediately results in Loki designating him as a scare crow. He watches as Loki works, on his knees and pinning the blanket out over the ground, coughing occasionally and sometimes shivering despite his coat. It takes nearly an hour before Loki finally stops fiddling with pins and tugging things exactly so. Tony presses a hand to his back to help steady him, light enough Loki can step away if he doesn't want the support. Loki leans back into it, rests his temple to Tony's and they both study the blanket. Tony has a feeling Loki is being much more critical about it than he is—all he sees are vines that seamlessly twine into other vines that eventually end in flowers, this thing that looks nearly ethereal and that Loki has spent the past few months pulling out of his head without any guide.

"That's. That's something," Tony finally says. "Last night it just looked like a… a…."

"Pile of squiggly spaghetti noodles," Loki says helpfully.

"Yes. Wow."

"It is yours."

Tony blinks, pulls away from Loki just enough that he can look at him. Loki glances at him, then back to the blanket.

"Unless you don't want it."

"I do. Jeez. Thank you."

When it's dry—and Loki _does_ make Tony help pull out the pins—Tony wraps it around Loki's shoulders while they watch the sunset on the pier.

"I told you—"

"And I want it on you. I'll have plenty of time to use it." Tony doesn't say _you're cough is worse_. Tony doesn't say _you're leaving soon_. Tony doesn't say _you're dying_.

He doesn't have to.

Loki frowns at him, but nods slightly.

They stay in Haapsalu. Two weeks later, a thunderstorm rises up unexpectedly and dies only a few minutes later. Tony leaves the next morning, alone.

Sometimes, hands tangled in the yarn like he saw Loki do so often, he imagines he can feel Loki's fever heat pressing against his skin again.


End file.
